Choosing your wedding stationery is a lovely moment in your planning process. You will be sending save the date cards and invitations to all of your closest family and friends, thinking about writing their place cards and deciding who they will sit with at your reception. You might want to have something that reflects your personalities, enclosing a photo of the two of you, your engagement ring or the place that you will be going on honeymoon. If you are having a specific colour theme or motif for your wedding it is nice to be able to incorporate this in to your invitations. Include a sprig of heather or a tartan bow for a wedding in Scotland, shamrocks or harps for a wedding in Ireland, shell motifs or beautiful sea creatures if you will be getting married abroad or simply something that is special to the two of you; a musical reference, quote from a book or film, holiday landmark or just your favourite colour. You can also link your wedding stationery theme or colour to your cake design, venue dressing, favours and floral arrangements.

Talk over your ideas with the person who will produce your stationery and they will be able to tell you about the different shapes, styles, colours and finishes that they offer, as well as bespoke details like foil accents, decorative edges or embellishments. Your ‘save the dates’ will go out 12 to 6 months before the wedding and the invitations 6 to 8 weeks before, although this is not a hard and fast rule. Just make sure that you factor in how long the invitations will take to be produced, plus extra time if you will be writing them and addressing the envelopes yourselves, as these things always take longer than you think. If you are writing the guests names, rather than having them printed on, remember to order enough to allow for a couple of mistakes – no one wants to get an invitation with someone else’s name crossed out!